Onondaga County hands out 1,280 tickets in March for illegally-tinted car windows

Number of tinting tickets issued by top performing law enforcement agencies in March:

Onondaga County Sheriffs Office: 489

Geddes Police: 140

New York State Police: 131

New York State Parks Police: 121

Syracuse Police Department: 102

North Syracuse Police Department: 98

A total of 1,280 tickets were issued for window tinting in March as part of a campaign by the Onondaga County Traffic Safety Advisory Board to focus on specific traffic violations.

In March 2010, there was only 127 tickets issued for window tinting that did not allow in 70 percent of the light, said North Syracuse Police Officer Jeff Tripp.

“We started with window tint for officer safety issues,” Tripp said. “We want people to take the tint off because they’re putting tint in their cars so they can talk on their cell phones and we can’t see them.”

This year, the board has the cooperation of all of the county’s police agencies — including towns and villages, sheriff’s deputies and state police — to target enforcement of the same violations at the same time.

Officers are being asked to have a zero-tolerance policy for the violations.